


confessions like teardrops

by kittymills



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode Related, Exploration, Light Angst, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Overheard Confessions, POV Alternating, Realisations, Season 2, Space Magic, Team Banter, Team Dynamics, Team Feels, booby traps and adventures, canonverse, episode fix it (kind of?), eventual sheith, grudging Lance and Keith friendship, hints of allurance - Freeform, kinda angsty when you think about what happens at the end of s2 I guess, set in season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:55:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/pseuds/kittymills
Summary: Things go awry for the team on a mission and Shiro almost loses everything.Instead he discovers one important truth.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 74





	confessions like teardrops

**Author's Note:**

> I went back and re-watched the series from the beginning & wanted to try something like a canon episode (only... not. Because Sheith).
> 
> This is set in season 2, somewhere between S2ep8 and S2ep11 (after the BOM episode but before the Weblum shenanigans) and is a purely self indulgent fantasy on all accounts.

The initial location they go to in search of enough fabled materials they need for their plan to defeat Zarkon has long been abandoned. It’s eerie, pulsing with energy that makes their teeth clench. The planet’s atmosphere is humid and thick, difficult enough to breathe that the paladins have to keep their helmets on. Over every surface, vines snake across the floor, clinging to the walls and dripping with dull gold.

Keith feels his skin crawl under his armor. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

Allura walks ahead of them but she’s hesitant when she pauses and glances back over her shoulder. “I… I’m not sure.”

“This place is kinda creepy,” Lance comments. He reaches out to touch one of the pulsing vines only to yelp and snatch his hand back when the vine detaches itself from the wall and tries to slither closer to him. He scrambles out of the way, panting slightly. The vine is like a tentacle, groping blindly in the dark and it makes a wet, slapping sound as it moves.

He wrinkles his nose. “That’s so gross.”

Pidge grips her Bayard with knuckles white under her armor. “I don’t like the feel of this place.”

“Yeah,” Hunk comments, glancing around as though he expects more horrors to emerge out of the walls. “Definitely some bad ju-ju here.”

“Maybe we should split up,” Allura suggests. “We can cover more ground more quickly that way.”

“Good idea,” Shiro agrees. “Lance, Keith, you two take the tunnels off to the left. Hunk and Pidge, you go right. Allura and I will keep going straight. With any luck, we’ll find what we need and be out of here in a hurry. I shouldn’t need to tell you all to stay on comms. In and out, paladins. Let’s go.”

Keith doesn’t bother to wait for Lance, striding off down the hallway they had been assigned. He’s just as creeped out by the vines as the others but he’s had more practice shoving it out of his mind. He unleashes his Bayard though, and advances with the sword gripped tight in his hand.

A few steps behind, Lance activates his own weapon.

It feels like hours that they’ve been walking but there’s nothing in the hallways but more vines and empty spaces. They spy a glow in the distance and hurry forward, only to find the tunnel open out onto a small platform high in the sky. They’re blinded by bright lavender hued daylight.

“Whoa,” Lance stares around in amazement. “There is literally nothing else here but creepy ass vines and a lot of rock.”

“Keep your eyes peeled. It might be hidden,” Keith tells him.

“You can’t expect us to check every mound, can you? Can’t Pidge and Hunk jimmy up the castle ship to scan the planet?”

Coran’s voice comes over the comms and into their ears. “Unfortunately no, the vines are giving off a peculiar kind of energy that makes it almost impossible for the ship’s sensors to detect. It has the ability to adapt to anything we thrown at it. No, I’m afraid so, we have to do this the old fashioned way.”

“Great,” Lance mutters. He creeps closer to the edge and peers down. “Whoa, now that’s a drop.”

Keith walks forward too, only for the ledge under his feet to crumble.

The drop catches both paladins by surprise and their fall is accompanied by panicked yells. They land with solid thumps that make their teeth jar painfully in their skulls.

Through the ringing in his ears, Keith can hear Shiro calling their names through the comms.

“We’re okay,” Keith grunts as he takes stock of his body. Nothing broken. He hears Shiro release a small hum of relief as he pulls himself up to his feet. Beside him, Lance is sprawled on his stomach moaning softly.

Keith nudges him with his foot. “Hey. You alive?”

Lance grunts then heaves himself upright. “Yeah.” He pats down his armor. “I think so. Where are we?”

Keith glances around then, mildly surprised at the space they find themselves in. It looks like a large underground room. The walls are vine free here, but reach up tall and slippery black. Keith tilts his head up and there’s nothing but violet sky above them. It’s too far to reach the opening even with their jetpacks.

“I don’t know. But this doesn’t look like part of the same complex.”

Keith turns away from the hole they tumbled through and ventures deeper into the room. There’s only one doorway at the far end, shrouded in gloom. Lance materializes at his side and they exchange a wary glance. “So… I guess that’s our only option?”

“Unless you want to wait here until the others come to rescue us,” Keith says drily. He starts walking forward. Shiro had told them to get in and get out, so that’s exactly what he plans to do. He doesn’t bother to check if Lance is following him.

“Shiro. There’s a tunnel here,” Keith says into his comms. It feels like a long time before Shiro answers.

“Stay where you are,” Shiro’s voice says. “We’re coming to get you.”

“Ah… I don’t think that’s going to work,” Lance says nervously. Keith is facing the tunnel but Lance grabs his shoulder and spins him around. He points towards the area they arrived from. “That wall is moving!”

Sure enough, the wide open space that Keith had stared up through just moments ago was now rapidly shrinking. The wall and the ceiling were encroaching towards them, a slow and incredibly smooth movement that instantly makes the hairs on the back of Keith’s neck stand up. He’s reminded distantly of some adventure movie Shiro had made him watch during their years at the garrison, an ancient temple, hapless explorers and a whole host of evil booby traps ready to squish any unlucky enough to snoop where they shouldn’t be.

Keith grabs Lance’s wrist and yanks hard as they bolt towards the rear of the room. It grows darker, the only light being swallowed up by the wall. He glances over his shoulder, only to find the wall advancing even faster.

“Come on, we gotta move!”

They make it through the doorway just as the wall slams on the backs of their heels. Keith wonders briefly if they’ve just dived out of the frying pan and into the flame and he grabs Lance again before the other paladin can continue down the narrow hallway they find themselves in.

“Ow, watch it, man! Quit grabbing me!” Lance protests. He’s panting heavily and his eyes are a little wild.

“Quiet!” Keith snaps, not so much that he needs the silence but more that he doesn’t need Lance giving into another freak out.

Lance snaps his mouth shut long enough for Keith to activate the light on his gauntlet and shine it into the darkness. It doesn’t illuminate much, except that the hallway they find themselves in is long, and dark, and the walls feel horrifyingly oppressive.

Lance swallows thickly. “Now would be a bad time to mention I’m kinda claustrophobic, right?”

“Shut up.”

Lance huffs in annoyance but he doesn’t speak again. He gives Keith the space he needs let his bayard shift into its sword form and watches curiously as Keith pokes around in the shadows with its tip.

He jumps when a sizzling bolt of light shoots out of the wall and slams into the other side.

Keith’s heart sinks. Yeah, they were in trouble.

“Are… are we in some kind of booby trapped temple?” Lance protests, his voice pitched high. “Oh. No. Nope. Nu, uh, I didn’t sign up for this. Coran? Coran! Can you get us out of here? Coran?” There’s a tiny pause and Lance’s voice fades a little along with Keith’s hope. “Hunk? Pidge? Shiro… anyone?”

The ever sinking sensation in Keith’s stomach turns to full lead at the silence. Lance stares at him worriedly.

“They can’t hear us, can they?”

* * *

It’s Pidge that somehow discovers the temple on her sensors before Shiro realizes they’ve lost contact with Keith and Lance. There’s a niggling sensation in his gut, a sense of urgency he’s finding it difficult to find his calm with. He tells himself it’s simply because he’s the leader, the team is his responsibility, but when Keith’s face flashes behind his eyes, something else he doesn’t want to look too close at rattles at the chains in the corner of his mind.

“How far down does it go?” he demands, trying to make sense of the complicated schematics that Pidge has enlarged from her wrist in front of her. “How do we find them?”

Pidge shakes her head. “I don’t know. I can’t see them. And this thing… This thing is a maze of rooms and corridors and of things I can’t even know because I can’t get a good read. It’s… it’s almost like it’s alive, like it’s trying to protect itself. It keeps _shifting_.”

Hunk blinks. “Wait, what? Protect its self how? I mean… It’s just a- what is it exactly?”

Three heads swing to stare at Allura. The princess has been quiet, an expression of steadily creeping dread filling her wide blue eyes.

“The Ni’ta’lan,” she whispers. “An incredibly ancient civilization even more bloody thirsty than the galra. They worshipped blood and death and-“

She covers her mouth with her hand, cutting herself off.

The name doesn’t mean much to Shiro, but all he needs to understand is its purpose. A dwelling, a temple, a maze – he doesn’t care what it is, as long as they can get Keith and Lance out.

“Allura, what do you know?” Pidge asks softly. She is just as freaked out as Hunk, but she wears it better.

Allura touches the wall. Under her fingertips, strange symbols are etched into the surface. Her face twists with something that looks like loathing, but she takes a deep breath and begins to speak.

* * *

“We can’t go forward, we can’t go back… So, what do we do?”

Keith has to give Lance credit here. Despite the deeply concerning situation they find themselves in and despite his initial panic, he quickly rallied and was keen to get to work on a solution.

The trouble was, there wasn’t much of a solution.

“I’m just trying to work that out,” Keith mutters. He tries vainly once again to reach the others over the comms but there’s nothing but silence.

That disturbs him more than the creepy dark walls around him does. They’ve managed to eke their way down the hallway slowly, using a combination of both their bayards to disturb the space ahead of them. The booby traps had died off, but Keith isn’t sure he will ever be able to take another step in his life without the expectation that the floor is going to fall out from under him, or that a blast will come from above to fry him to a crisp.

It’s a good thing this paladin armor is nigh on indestructible.

They reach what appears to be the end of the tunnel. A wall of solid black with some indecipherable imagery etched cleanly onto its surface. Had it been galra, Keith would have laid his hand on it, but something about this place makes his instincts scream that it would be a bad idea to try it here.

Lance eyes the apparent dead end then drops to the floor, scuffing forward on his hands and knees.

“Lance, what are you doing?”

“Looking for a seam,” he mutters. “These sorts of places always have them.”

“These sorts of places?”

“Yeah, you know-“ Lance pauses in his shuffling to wave a hand around vaguely. “Ancient temples and stuff.” He goes back to searching.

It takes Keith a full minute to resign himself to the fact that they have nothing to lose by trying. He drops down too, just as Lance lets out a small crow of triumph and for the second time that day, the ground falls out from under them.

* * *

“I found them!”

Pidge flips the coordinates to each of them and Shiro pauses long enough to give it a quick glance before he’s sprinting down the path. His voice has long gone hoarse from trying to raise Keith and Lance on comms. He knows they’re alive, the breaking static and snatches of their voices in his earpiece thankfully enough reassurance of that, but the deep dread at the bottom of his spine that tells him their time is limited won’t abate. He suspects the rest of his team feel it too.

Especially Allura.

She doesn’t offer much more information than the absolute basics – anything more wouldn’t be much help anyway – but her skin seems sallow under its rich dark tone. She’s scared, and her fear makes Shiro’s own run rampant.

It feels like an age before they finally make their way into the depths of the Ni’ta’lan temple. It’s ominous and sinuous black, subtly shifting walls that make Pidge whimper and press close to his back. Hunk gulps loudly and a glance to his side shows him almost white beneath his helmet, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Its nightmare fuel, more horrendous than anything he’s ever witnessed with the galra.

“What happened to these people,” Shiro wonders out loud, before Allura curtly informs him of their own self destruction.

They continue through, black walls suddenly alight with a crystal glow. Pidge holds up her wrist. “This is it. This is where they should be.”

Shiro stares at the space in front of them – a wide, blank wall.

“Are you sure?”

Before he can answer, the wall shifts, black oozing away to reveal a silvery, cloudy surface like ice. Beyond it, two familiar outlines shift.

* * *

“Did you hear that?” Lance spins on his heel but there’s nothing to see. The room is empty, the walls smoothed over and thankfully no longer shifting. A protrusion of crystals in the corners start to pulse, illuminating them in a soft, bluish silver light.

Keith cocks his head and tries to listen. It would probably be easier without his helmet, but the air in here reads toxic and he would really rather give themselves a fighting chance to get out of here. “No. Nothing.”

“Huh,” Lance murmurs. He paces around the room once more then comes to a complete stop. “Do you think they’ve realized we’re missing?”

Keith glances at the readings on his HUD. “Yeah, it’s been hours now. Shiro would know something was up.”

Lance nods once. Then, “I hope nothing has happened to them either.”

Keith sighs then slumps down against the wall. He’s trying hard not to panic, but his thoughts are just as loud as Lance’s. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

“Yeah,” Lance exhales and rocks back on his heels. His hands curl into tight fists. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

* * *

“Can’t they see us?” Hunk peers through the crystal. The longer they’ve been here, the clearer the glass like substance of the barrier seems to become. It’s not glass though, Pidge had already ascertained that much.

Shiro’s gaze follows a certain red paladin. He can see them visibly enough through the thick barrier but no matter how much they banged and yelled on the other side, it seems that Lance and Keith were oblivious.

“They can’t see us” Pidge marvels. “It’s… it’s like some kind of one way glass-“

“Oh, like they use in interrogation rooms,” Hunk nods. “Okay.”

Pidge’s fingers twitch. Shiro is sure that if she didn’t have her helmet on, she would be adjusting her glasses right now. “Well, yes, experimental psychology and research too, even-“

“Execution chambers.”

Shiro glances sharply at Allura. The air rushes out of his chest along with his heart. “No,” he breathes.

Pidge and Hunk are stunned silent. The only thing they can hear is Lance’s chatter through the comms on the other side. Frustration and fear are a sour tang in Shiro’s mouth.

“We need to get them out of there,” he states with a lot more calm than he feels.

“But how?” Hunk does his best to hide his rising panic but it manifests in a rush of words. “We can hear them, but they can’t hear us. We can’t get through, we can’t reach them at all!”

Pidge steps closer to the wall. She peers though, watching the shift of red and blue inside. She can see them pacing. “Maybe this barrier is like… maybe it’s a code that just needs to be cracked? The Olkari taught me a lot, maybe there’s something I can try.”

Shiro lays a hand against the barrier. It’s so cold against his hand. “Do what you can, Pidge.”

* * *

“How long has it been now?” Lance asks, for what Keith guesses to be the millionth time. He’s kind of tired of it, since all Lance has to do is look at the readouts on his helmet, except that he knows it’s really just a way to keep him talking. A way to keep himself distracted.

And it’s easier to focus on his annoyance than on how long they’ve been trapped here and the rising foreboding that threatens to settle around his shoulders like a cloak. This place feels… dark. Evil somehow, which is ridiculous because it seems to be just an empty chamber.

At least there’s no lightning bolts exploding from the walls here… yet.

“About the same as the last time you asked,” he finally mutters when he realizes Lance is waiting for an answer.

Five hours? Six? He doesn’t bother to narrow it down. They’ve already chewed through the measly food goo pouch Lance had stashed under the breastplate of his armor.

“It’s been hours now,” Lance paces the space restlessly. “Why haven’t they come?”

* * *

Shiro feels every hour tick by with excruciating slowness. He would be climbing out of his skin if he couldn’t at least see them on the other side of the barrier or listen in on their bewildered chatter as they digest their situation. They’re so close, yet so far beyond reach it makes his teeth ache. Keith is just on the other side of that wall, and Shiro can’t reach him.

Even when he’d been the scruffy kid that had the audacity to steal his car right out from under his nose, Shiro had always been able to reach him.

He chews the inside of his cheek to stop himself demanding another update from Pidge but then he hears her low growl of frustration and he doesn’t have to ask.

* * *

“You know, if we end up dying in here, in this place, I’m going to be _so_ annoyed,” Lance huffs irritably. He kicks an imaginary pebble with his boot.

Keith pulls a face. “Yeah? What difference would it make?”

Lance looks at him in mild dismay, like it should be obvious. “ _Because,_ Keith, then how will anyone remember us? Who will know the good we’ve done?” Lance goes quiet. “And because it means I won’t ever get to see my family again. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.”

Keith is silent, thinking about his father. There had been a chance to say goodbye before that last shift he took when Keith was eleven, and he’d taken it. Just a wave and a quick “’bye, dad!” as he’d bolted out the house with a piece of toast clamped in his jaws. If he had known it would be the last time, he would have made it special. He would have made it count.

“I’m not scared,” Lance continues. It seems he’s talking more to himself than to Keith. “Not of dying or anything. I mean, I figure we’ve had so many close calls already, maybe this is the time our luck finally runs out. Maybe this is it for us.”

“No,” Keith says firmly. “It can’t be.”

“I just… I hate that my family won’t know what happened to me. That I wasn’t just a screw up. Or maybe I am, if I end up dying here.”

“We’re not screw ups.”

“I wanted to… you know, I just wanted to be someone that… someone like Allura could fall in love with. Pretty crazy, right? A princess.” Lance scoffs and looks down. His voice becomes dejected. “She deserves better anyway. She deserves everything.”

Keith doesn’t quite know what to do with this sudden moment of vulnerability. It makes him uncomfortable but deep down, he gets it.

_He gets it._

* * *

On the other side of the wall, Pidge’s face is lit up with blue from the interface of her paladin armor. Hunk sits close to her, the glow skimming across his skin too.

They can’t help but stay silence as Lance and Keith continue to talk quietly over the comms.

There’s a long moment of quiet that has them all wondering if the comms might have finally dropped out before Keith’s voice carries across the airwaves, calm and quiet.

“Do you love her?”

Lance’s response is a soft little sigh. “Yeah, I do. I think? I mean, I’ve never been in love before. What does it feel like?”

Pidge and Hunk share a glance. Hunk whispers, “should we be listening to this?” before Pidge taps a few areas on her display. Shiro doesn’t think to answer them, his feet are rooted to the spot and his heart thunders wildly in his ears.

“Like they’re your world,” Keith says matter of factly. “You’d do anything for them. You just want them… safe. Happy. Even if it’s not with you.”

“Huh,” Lance answers. “Yeah, well, then I guess I am. What about you then?”

“What about me?” The puzzlement in Keith’s tone is obvious.

“I mean… well, you and Shiro.”

“What?”

Hunk makes a small strangled sound somewhere nearby but Shiro barely hears it. He finds himself straining, heart in his throat for the next thing he’s going to hear. Something else builds inside him, something he can’t acknowledge. Something that tastes like hope.

“You love him, don’t you,” Lance continues. He doesn’t say it like a question but his tone is laced with curiosity. “I can see it. When you look at him I mean.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Lance scoffs. “Yeah it does. Why don’t you tell him?”

Keith’s reply is almost amused. “He knows.”

There’s a pause and Shiro can hardly breathe. He hadn’t realized he’d been moving steadily closer to the wall, not until his hand became splayed against the crystal surface. He can see them in there, blurred smears of white, red and blue. He wishes he could see Keith’s face. He wishes he could reach them.

“Are you sure about that, man?” Lance is dubious. “I mean… yeah, he knows you love him. But does he know you like, _love_ him, love him?”

Keith doesn’t answer. The silence stretches on. Shiro’s heart thunders so hard. His stomach falls to the floor. He’s almost dizzy from holding his breath.

“It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re in the middle of war. Not really a good time.”

Lance goes silent. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

* * *

For a long while after, neither of them say much. They slump against the wall, heads bowed, almost dozing from the boredom of being helpless when a low hiss starts to sound from a space above them. One of the glowing crystal clusters near the ceiling starts to emit a fine mist.

Lance scrambles to his feet. His voice rises with panic. “What is _that?”_

Keith stands up more slowly. Trepidation swirls low in his stomach. “I don’t-“

He can’t finish because he’s seized by the need to cough. His chest feels tight and the realization hits just as Lance wheezes roughly.

“It’s.. it’s some kind of toxic gas!”

Keith slams the filtration on his suit to the highest setting but his HUD is already blaring red with warnings. “How long can our suits filter this out?”

“I don’t know!” Lance yelps between coughs. “Do I look like Pidge? She would know.”

The mist grows thicker around them and a sickly sweet taste steals across his tongue. He can barely see Lance’s blue paladin armour through the fog now. It’s so hard to see anything.

Somehow that’s the most terrifying thing.

* * *

The rest of the team still can’t breach the crystalline surface and Shiro is at the end of his rope.

“We’ll use the lions. Blast our way in!”

Pidge looks horrified. “No! That might cook them alive!”

Shiro fights hard to keep his calm. “Then what can we do?”

“Look!”

Hunk points towards the wall just as Allura gasps out a small cry of distress. The surface seems to be thinning, clearing away the haze that dulled what was beyond it. They can see Lance and Keith, both still standing and doubled over, their hands on their knees. Keith is holding Lance up.

“What’s going on? Why can’t we hear them?”

“I don’t know,” Pidge wails and she rushes to the wall. Allura is at her side, hands slammed against the surface.

_“Lance!”_

On the other side, Lance’s head raises up. With the surface clearing, they can see their faces now. They can _hear_ them. Their eyes are red rimmed in their helmets and thin, dark spidery lines travel over their cheeks like blackened cobwebs.

“Allura?” he whispers hoarsely.

“Can you hear us?” Keith croaks then both paladins are pressing themselves against the wall, gloved hands scrambling at the smooth barrier as though trying to dig through with their hands. Behind them, the room disappears in a world of pale fog.

“Hang in there,” Shiro tells them with all the calmness and command he can muster. He wants to say more but there will be time enough for that later. “We’re coming to get you!”

Keith swings his head around to meet his gaze. “I think–“ he coughs roughly, “–I think it’s too late.”

Shiro pauses at the resigned look in Keith’s eye. _No,_ his heart screams. _No, no, no!_

Lance coughs again and it’s obvious even over the comms how difficult it’s getting for them to breathe now. He glances once at Keith then wearily shuffles down along the barrier. Further down to where Hunk and Pidge huddle. Hunk refuses to look at him, even when Lance calls his name. He’s doubling down on his efforts on the code but Pidge has rivers of silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

“No,” she whispers furiously. She hides her fear behind a righteous anger. “ _Don’t you dare.”_

Lance looks like he’s pass out. His skin is sickly pale under the dark webbing now. He thumps his helmet gently against the barrier and turns barely, just enough to face Allura. “Allura-“

The beeps on their suits get louder and panic grips Shiro around the throat like a vice. He can’t stand here and watch two of his team die in front of him. Not Lance, not Keith.

Especially not Keith. With so much left unsaid.

Keith slumps to his knees, hands still reaching for the barrier. “Shiro,” he rasps and then the light seems to dim in his eyes.

“No,” Shiro whispers. “No!”

The whispered protest becomes a roar as his galra arm ignites into a powerful indigo glow and he slams it into the barrier. The force reverberates up his arm and doesn’t give way but he slams it again and again. “No, Keith. No, I’m not going to let this happen. Stay with me, baby. _Stay with me!”_

He slams his arm against the barrier once more and then suddenly Allura is at his side. She sobs Lance’s name once and then she starts to glow. Shiro doesn’t know where the power comes from, he doesn’t care. As long as it gets through the barrier.

The tempo of his heart screams out Keith’s name as the glow intensifies. The hair on his body stands on end and he can feel Allura’s power coursing over his skin and ringing in his ears. She grabs his hand and he understands instinctively what he has to do.

He slams his glowing hand into the barrier once more.

It shatters like glass.

* * *

When Keith opens his eyes, he’s not alone. His legs are shaky as the pod dissolves around him but he remembers in the nick of time not to move too fast. He’s back on the castle ship, the rest of the paladins hovering around him. He searches out Lance first, surprised but relived to see him being held up by Allura. His arm is slung around her shoulder and he looks almost stunned, like he can’t believe his luck Allura would let him so close, let alone allow him to touch her.

Then Shiro steps forward and fills his vision and Keith’s knees go weak.

“Hey, Keith,” Shiro says gently. His expression is inscrutable but somehow soft.

“Hey,” Keith mutters. His throat feels rough. His legs feel kind of shaky too but he’s okay to stand. It surprises him when Shiro helps him out of the pod with such care and doesn’t let him go.

“It’s good to have you back.”

Keith quirks his lips. “It’s good to be back.”

* * *

They get back into the swing of things quickly. Since the original mission was a bust, they split up to gather what they need.

Not everything is the same though. The team feels a little unbalanced, like something has happened behind the scenes that Lance and Keith don’t seem to be privy to.

It’s… unnerving.

Lance shows up at his door sometime during the night. It’s not totally unexpected.

“Dude, tell me I’m not imagining this,” he starts, barging his way into Keith’s room. “But is everyone acting kind of weird around us?”

Its Keith’s first default to scoff at anything Lance says, but this… Well, Keith has noticed it too.

He shrugs. “I don’t get it.”

Lance huffs in irritation. He paces the small space a few more times then slumps on the foot of Keith’s bed. “Me neither. Allura actually _laughed_ at one of my jokes. And she like… didn’t kick me out off the bridge like she usually does.”

“Whoa, man. It really is the end times.” Keith deadpans.

Lance gives him a sideways look. “Har, har. No really, don’t you think that’s kind of weird? And Hunk went and batched a whole new tray of those cookies I like and Pidge didn’t even chew me out for borrowing her headphones again.”

“Borrowing? Is that what you call it?”

Lance waves a hand. “Pssh, she wasn’t using them. Anyway, it’s weird. Don’t you think it’s weird?”

Keith has to admit… it is a little strange. It’s not just the difference with the rest of the team either. He’s noticed differences of his own, especially with Shiro.

It’s been uncomfortable in a way that Keith isn’t really to look to closely into.

“What about Shiro? Has he been… you know, different with you?”

It takes Keith a moment to answer. Shiro has been cordial to him, as patient as ever. There’s been a few times that they’ve been the last two left in the room and he’s looked as though he’s about to say something only to shake himself off and say good night.

Keith wishes he knew what he was about to say. Or maybe he doesn’t.

* * *

It all comes to a head the night before the battle with Zarkon. Basking in the Oklarion sunset in the middle of the giant teleduv that was one of the vital keys to the making the mission a success. The others had left a little while ago, spirits high and keen to make the most of their last night.

Keith was about to turn and follow, leaving Shiro to stare pensively off into the sunset when Shiro calls his name.

Keith pauses mid-step. “Yeah?”

Shiro glances back over his shoulder. “Can we talk for a second?”

“Sure,” he says. “What’s up?”

It takes a moment for Shiro to drag his gaze away from the rapidly setting sun. The shadows are starting to reach long fingers over the land now. It won’t be long until the stars come out.

“There’s… there’s something you should know.”

Keith waits expectantly for Shiro to continue. He can sense Shiro’s hesitation but assumes it’s something to do with the mission. Maybe something he didn’t want the others to know about or hear. “Yeah? What is it?”

Shiro turns to face him fully now. “When we were on that moon and you and Lance were in the temple, in that room– you couldn’t hear us… but we could hear you.”

It takes an agonizingly long time for the pieces to fall into place. Shiro stares at him with a face that is the perfect mask of concern. Keith thinks back, to the confessions Lance and he had let fall to the ground around them like teardrops. He honestly hadn’t expected to live long enough to deal with the fallout.

His face flames instantly. “Shiro… I.. I’m sorry. It doesn’t have to change anything-“

“Keith, no, that’s not… that’s not what I meant.”

Keith tries vainly to brace himself for the rejection and humiliation he knows is coming. His face is hot with embarrassment. He can’t bring himself to meet Shiro’s eye. “Shiro. It’s okay. It’s fine. I won’t let it affect anything. It won’t affect the mission… or the team. I can handle it.”

Shiro glances away, back out to the shadows creeping over the planet. There’s a long moment before he answers with a softly uttered, “but I can’t.”

Keith’s gut twists. He feels sick. “What… what do you mean?”

Shiro startles him by laying a hand against his shoulder. The touch in itself isn’t unusual, but the way Shiro’s palm gently glides up to cup his cheek is. There’s a lot in his eyes. A lot Keith’s heart is straining to hear.

Shiro’s soft smile is rueful. One thumb brushes against Keith’s cheekbone tenderly.

Keith can hardly breathe.

“This isn’t the right time,” Shiro says quietly, almost apologetically. “Not tonight with so much riding on tomorrow’s mission, but when it’s done… Keith, I think there’s a lot we have to talk about.”

Keith can feel the promise there, in Shiro’s gaze, in his touch. It feels… different. Different to before.

He doesn’t dare nod his head for fear of dislodging Shiro’s hand. Instead, he covers it with his own.

“Yeah,” he whispers, his heart the lightest it’s felt in a long time. “I think we do.”

**Author's Note:**

> We all know they eventually get married and live happily ever after, okay. Please don't kill me *sob*


End file.
